1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographic information processing apparatus that can process photographic information to be used to capture a medical X-ray image. The present invention further relates to a photographic information processing method and a computer-readable storage medium storing a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the medical field, for example, an advanced medical information management system, such as Hospital Information System (HIS) or Radiological Information System (RIS), can be effectively used to process digitized data of medical information. Advanced image acquisition apparatuses functioning as a modality (i.e., a medical device) have remarkable capability for processing digital data of medical images. Typically, a photographing operation for a medical purpose (e.g., X-ray imaging) is generally performed based on examination order information received from the medical information management system (e.g., HIS or RIS).
In general, the modality performs a photographing operation in response to examination order information received from the RIS and outputs the image data acquired in the photographing operation to an image storage server that may be referred to as Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS). The examination order information, for example, includes patient information (e.g., patient ID, patient name, and other personal data) and photographic information (e.g., technical procedure usable in photographing operations).
In case of a medical emergency, it is generally difficult to know a name of a patient or to obtain a properly processed examination order beforehand. For example, in a case where the patient to be photographed is a seriously ill patient, such a patient may not be able to provide personal information. Accordingly, the RIS temporarily generates examination order information based on dummy photographic information to cause the modality to perform a photographing operation based on temporary examination order information. In this case, it may be required that the RIS performs processing for correcting the photographic information after completing the photographing operation.
In addition, there may also exist medical facilities that allow a modality to start a photographing operation before receiving examination order information. In this case, the medical facility receives examination order information after the modality has completed the photographing operation; and the modality corrects the photographic information based on the received examination order information. In many cases, the above-described processing is based on manual work performed by an operator, which is not included in an ordinary workflow and is not performed efficiently. As the photographing operation performed by the modality is done by manual work, it is not discriminated from an ordinary photographing operation. Therefore, image data may be erroneously output together with the dummy photographic information even in a case where the photographic information of the image data needs to be corrected upon completing the photographing operation.